Basra burns; ambush continues

The city was calmer on Monday morning. British military presence on the streets of Basra was less overt and the city was quieter. A group of harbour workers, who said they had been sacked in the final months of Saddam Hussein8217;s rule, gathered outside the Iraq administration headquarters demanding jobs and back-pay.

Officials in Iraq8217;s US-led administration say the frequent power cuts are due to sabotage of cables linking Basra to the national grid and equipment breakdowns at ramshackle power stations. They say sabotage of pipelines and rampant oil smuggling have led to the shortage of fuel.

The country8217;s main southern oil refinery in the city stopped processing completely on Sunday night due to a power failure, the general manager of the southern refineries company said on Monday. 8216;8216;It8217;s zero,8217;8217; refinery manager Thair Ibrahim said. 8216;8216;The generators are not working8230; We are planning to install a new turbine, but this could take until the end of September.8217;8217;

Meanwhile, the 4th Infantry Division said it had launched a new mission, Operation Ivy Lightning, to hunt Saddam loyalists it believed had fled to isolated villages east of Saddam8217;s hometown of Tikrit to escape repeated US raids. Reuters